Sea horses for different courses Issue 101 : Mar/A...
May 6, 2026
BY MICHAEL ROBERTSON UNSTAYED: LOOKING FOR PHOTOS Good Old Boat is looking for readers’ photos for an upcoming spread. We want to see you and your boat, underway beneath a headsail that’s set flying, ...
Well-drilled junior sailors help save a mast To the tune of the Beverly Hillbillies theme song . . . Let me tell you a little story ’bout an engineer named Tom. Had a little boat that he sailed upon t...
I drag the dinghy down the dune to the beach. The water lies so calm only an occasional ripple slurps ashore. I set my knapsack on the bow seat and shove off, the scrape of the hull on the sand giving...
When author Jim Trefethen wrote Sailing Into Retirement, he combined some information from his previous book, The Cruising Life, first published in 1999, with a second, updated edition in 2015. But, i...
Who’s the Captain? is a 56-page picture book of sailing life according to Dad and his crew. The humor in the text is accentuated by clever, colorful cartoons. Older kids who are familiar with the ins ...
Bill Streever is a biologist and a well-known nature writer. He and his wife, Lisanne, are novice cruising folk, who boldly set off on a cruise from Galveston, Texas, to Mexico’s Yucatan with only a v...
About 27 years ago, a group of sailors at Yankee Point Marina, off the Rappahannock River in Virginia, decided that a sailboat race in November would make a fine climax to the sailing season. Some of ...
Great alternator tensioning device In the June Good Old Boat Newsletter Dave Lochner has an article (“DIY V-Belt Tensioning”) with an excellent idea about tensioning the alternator belt. O...
The Tartan 34 Turns 50! Tim J. Dull, Vice Commodore of the Tartan 34 Classic Association, let us know that this year marks the 50th anniversary of the Tartan 34, S&S design 1904. The sloop versio...
Not in all the years that hundreds of sailing books have landed on my desk for review have I thought that a novel was destined for the leap from boating literature to mainstream reading and popularity...
One night, about two years ago, we sailed Country Dancer, our Catalina 470, into a very narrow fjord just southeast of Thunder Bay, Canada. This little inlet was about 100-odd feet across, 25 f...
Vern Hobbs’ third novel is his best one yet, and the other two are very good. An artist and contributor to several sailing magazines, including Good Old Boat, Vern began his journey as an author in 20...
I read the title, The Boat Drinks Book: A different tipple in every port. I expected I’d find inside a cold and factual catalogue of all of the boat drinks I’d ever tasted, and perhaps a couple of new...
A tour of the marina was illuminating My good fortune to live on a small barrier island in Florida is offset by the misfortune of full-time employment that requires me to commute to the mainland daily...
The thing I like about opera is its ability to bring together of so many complementary artistic endeavors to create a production that pleases all the senses. That is, a production where the who...
“Initially a reluctant sailor, I fell in love with the cruising life…waking up each morning in a different place…Also the satisfaction of a life pared down to the essentials, yet all you really need…u...
The Salty Bard makes magical moments. For those who sail there are magic moments; and not all of them come with the canvas flying. While the swoosh of a hull slicing through white caps can quicken th...
Ever wonder why all Good Old Boat book reviews are positive? It’s not because all the books we review are good. It’s not because our reviewers are kind to a fault. It’s because when a Good Old Boat bo...
Note: Editor Karen Larson asked Avital Keeley — a junior member of the Good Old Boat crew and an enthusiastic newbie — to review this book. What better opinion than one from a youngster who is very in...
This is an intriguing little book. Although it is titled Notable Boats, it really is the story of some extraordinary people. Compton, who is a past editor of the British magazine, Classic Boats, sets ...
Is it every sailor’s dream to rescue a mermaid, a topless lady in distress? What could be better? How about a somewhat modern slant on the mermaid theme…say, a mermaid who can get around on two good l...
In the wake of his brother’s recent death, George Michelsen Foy becomes interested in the fate of his great, great grandfather, Capt. Halvor Michelsen, lost aboard the Norwegian packet Stavanger Paque...
The amateur yachting historian has been blessed recently with a plethora of superb new biographies of prominent yacht designers. There is Martin Black’s weighty biography of George Lennox Watson, The ...
Lin and Larry Pardey have had a lifetime of adventure and they have willingly invited the rest of us along for most of those grand experiences through their books and published articles. Lin did most ...
James Baldwin has once again pulled out his logs, sharpened his memory, and shared the incredible tale of one of his circumnavigations aboard Atom, his 28-foot Pearson Triton. The first circumnavigati...
I’ve been sailing Tortuga, my 1969 Westerly Centaur, since 2003, and about 75 percent of the time I’m alone, so needless to say I was thrilled when asked to review Andrew Evan’s book, Singlehanded Sai...
I first got the bug to own a sailboat sometime in the late ’70s and for a while I toyed with the idea of building one. However, as the years went by and I came to understand myself more, I realized th...
In the Wake of Heroes: Sailing’s Greatest Stories is an apt title for this collection of excerpts from sailing adventures penned over the last century and a half. Tom Cunliffe provides a brief introdu...
Historical novelist James Haley has entered the crowded field of nautical fiction occupied by the likes of Patrick O’Brian (Aubrey-Maturin series), C. S. Forester (Horatio Hornblower), Richard Woodman...
Michael and Elizabeth Tanner and a friend charter a sailboat in the Pacific Northwest and enjoy a typical cruise . . . that is, until the fog closes in and a large mystery boat attacks for no apparent...
